Using the Media widget and setting layout options

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Now that you have added audio and video files to your photo book layout in Apple iBooks Author, you can also add widgets and graphics that change the appearance of the media player. How do you do this? In this video, author Richard Harrington walks you through how to adjust the media play settings with a widget in iBooks Author.

- Let's explore the widget controlswhere we can apply graphics or other elementsto change the appearance of the media player.In this case, with my audio file selected from before,I'm going to change its appearance.You'll see we can show this as a button or a scrubber barif we want to give the user some basic controls.Let's also turn off the Layout here.I'll make this a little bigger.Let's size that up a little bit and select that file.

You see we can adjust the size and it comes through.If you look at that closely, let's zoom in here,you see that you have basic controlsincluding a volume control but let's preview that.File, Preview.You'll see that the page updates.There's the player control.

However, while they have a scrubberand a Play button and a timer, there is no volume control.Just like you had to prepare video filesin an outside program,if you find that the audio needs to be adjusted,you want to permanently adjust its levels,consider opening it up in an application like GarageBandor Adobe Audition to modify the files.Now, let's explore what else we can do with the widget.With that selected, I can choose Interaction hereand modify this.

Let's remove the Goes Full-Screenbut from the Layout here, I'm going to change this a bit.Let's remove that file and add it back in.Let's select it there and I'll choose Imageand now we can switch back over to Pagesand I've got a Costa Rican flag.Let's choose Copy, switch back,double click on that image and Paste and it updates.

Now, from the Layout, I can decide what's visible.I'll get rid of the Title here and remove the Margin.Here we go.Let's drag that into place and adjust.So now, we have a simple flag for the country.I can position that to place.That looks good.Let's punch out a little bit.There we go.I like that there.Looking under Interaction, I can see what's happening.

You can use the image, a scrubber bar or a button.You can also decide if the music loops or repeats.Now that I've got that formatted,let's preview to see what it looks like.We'll send that to the tablet.It opens it upand you see we have the flag on the page.It's not obvious that this is a player so if you wanted to,you might want to modify the artwork slightlywith a Play button but tappingwill start the playback.

Switching to the next page stops it.Remember, you can easily insert basic shapes.For example, I could add a small circle with a triangle.Let's rotate that using the Inspector.We'll fill that with a colorand rotate it into place.There we go.

Now, we have a rudimentary Play button.I can select both elements and choose to group those,drop that over the flag, scale it down smalland we'll set that in the cornerand lower the Opacity if we want.Let's preview that on the computer this time.It sends the page over and you see you have a Play button.Now, the user can click that buttonto start the playback.

You notice that switching pages discontinues playback.Let's switch back to iBooks Author.Now, this image is causing a bit of a wrapso I'm going to take a look to seeif there's extra spaces here.I see a hard return so I'll select that and press Deleteand you see that the text moves up.Similarly, let's go to the end hereand delete any extra spaces and the blank page is removed.Now, that Play button is optional.I'm going to actually remove it hereso this is a bit more of an Easter egg,a little surprise that the person who taps on the flagwill be greeted with the national anthem.

Let's choose to save our work.File, Save and it's captured.If you explore the Media browser,you'll find that there are a few more movies included.Feel free to take a look at these other filesand drop them in as needed.From the Arenal section here,there's one more movie that can get placed into your design.For example, for this conservation area here,I'll put this on the next page.

There's a small spot here so I'll just drag it across.There it is, becomes optimized.To recap, simply go under the controlsand you can remove things like the title and captionand easily take advantage of the layout hereusing the wrapping section to turn off Wrap.There it is and I'll just drop that into the pageand you see how we get alignment guidesto help it with alignment.

If you take a look at that,you may want to adjust the Marginso it doesn't get pinned or have a gap at the edge.Now, you can easily adjust the size to fit.There we go, let's just pull that down a little bitand there we have that video file added to the page.Taking advantage of the widget's controlslet you do a lot of things.You can both take advantage of Layout controlsfor things like titles and marginsand take advantage of what frame is the poster frame.

So I could adjust this hereso it's a little bit more clear what the video's aboutand I can tell it whether it playswhen you click on it or not.I like that so that it requires user interaction.Let's choose File, Save to capture our work.

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Author

Released

5/18/2017

Apple iBooks Author offers a way to grow your reach and influence with the photo community and prospective clients. In this course, learn how to use the iBooks Author app to create electronic books that you can share with others, and optionally distribute through the iBooks Store. These books can contain photos, video, audio, and text—giving you great options as a storyteller. Rich Harrington provides an overview of the platform, and takes you through the complete process, from planning to design and distribution, including the consideration of pricing strategies. He explains how to prepare your book assets, set up your book and its structure, and work with photos. He also shows how to add hyperlinks, audio, and video, and finalize your work.